THE SOIL ASSOCIATION LIMITED

Registered charity 206862 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · Wikidata: Q7554873 · Wikipedia · also registered in Scotland as SC039168 (OSCR)

- Building public awareness about the benefits of organic food and farming through: education and public information; and public events programme.- Training and support for producers on organic practice.- Regional development programme to link producers to consumers at a local level.- Ensure the integrity of organic food by the continued development of organic standards.

Objects

(A) TO ADVANCE THE EDUCATION OF THE PUBLIC BY PROMOTING A FULL UNDERSTANDING OF THE VITAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE HEALTH OF THE SOIL, PLANTS, ANIMALS, PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT (B) TO ADVANCE THE EDUCATION OF THE PUBLIC BY CARRYING OUT RESEARCH (AND DISSEMINATING THE RESULTS) INTO AGRICULTURAL AND FORESTRY PRODUCTION METHODS AND THE EFFECTS OF THESE METHODS ON THE QUALITY OF FOOD AND OTHER OUTPUTS ON HUMAN HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT (C) TO PRESERVE, CONSERVE AND PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT THROUGH THE PRUDENT USE OF NATURAL RESOURCES, INCLUDING BY THE PROMOTION OF ORGANIC AND SUSTAINABLE FARMING TECHNIQUES (D) TO PROMOTE AND ENHANCE HUMAN HEALTH THROUGH PROVIDING INFORMATION AND ADVICE IN RELATION TO HEALTHY EATING AND NUTRITION (E) TO PROMOTE HIGH STANDARDS IN THE CARE AND WELFARE OF FARM ANIMALS TO PREVENT CRUELTY TO AND SUFFERING BY FARM ANIMALS

Area of benefit: NOT DEFINED

The charity’s charitable objects and area of benefit, quoted from its governing document as held on the Charity Commission register.

Causes: Education/training · Animals · Environment/conservation/heritage · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Bristol, City of, South West, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the Group made a surplus of £233k for the year, with total turnover increasing by 16% to £24.9 million. The Trustees report that free unrestricted reserves of £1.024 million are within the target range of £900k to £1.8 million, though they note these reserves are expected to decline in the coming months due to economic challenges and cost reductions.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by RSM UK Audit LLP. Discloses 3 of 6 completeness components.

Policies the charity declares

In its annual return the charity told the Commission that it has the policies listed below. This is self-declared: it is not verified by the Commission or by this site, and it is not evidence of how a policy works in practice.

• Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
• Campaigns and political activity policy and procedures
• Complaints handling
• Complaints policy and procedures
• Conflicting interests
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• Investing charity funds policy and procedures
• Investment
• Paying staff
• Risk management
• Safeguarding policy and procedures
• Safeguarding vulnerable beneficiaries
• Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
• Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
• Trustee expenses policy and procedures
• Volunteer management

From the charity’s annual return (Part A, self-declared)

Answers and figures the charity gave in Part A of its annual return to the Charity Commission. They are self-declared: not verified by the Commission or by this site. Only positive answers and figures are listed; items not listed are simply not shown.

Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — Soil Association (matched by registered charity number).

Property (HM Land Registry)

1 registered title in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (1 freehold); recorded price paid £2.3m. All charity-held property. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright, OGL v3.0.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook (114,183 followers) · instagram (75K followers)

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/03/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~0.5 months of spending — in the bottom quarter for charities its size (median 4.6 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Charitable activities (81% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 4.3% of total income — above the median for charities its size (3.7%) (benchmarks).

Register events

• Received assets from another charity (26/01/2024) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.

Trustees · trustee networks

• Andrew Stanley Burgess · trustee of 1 other charity
• Caroline Ann Missen
• Jonathan William Spencer · trustee of 1 other charity
• Kirsty Marie Shaw
• Neil Hugh Morris
• Philip Edward Fearnley
• Prof Isabel Oliver
• Richard Friend Allan
• Sabine Vandenbroucke
• Steven Lancaster Lizars
• Victoria Stevens

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Northern Ireland · Scotland · Throughout England And Wales

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Grants marked “Unverified read” were flagged by automated checks as possibly misread from the funder’s filed accounts. They are listed, but left out of the totals, counts and funder relationships this site computes.

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with THE SOIL ASSOCIATION LAND TRUST.

• THE SOIL ASSOCIATION LAND TRUST income £639k
• LINKING ENVIRONMENT AND FARMING income £3.2m
• THE ORGANIC FAMILY FOUNDATION income £27k
• GOSFORTH AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY income £47k
• THE VEGAN-ORGANIC NETWORK income £396k
• THE GOOD SOIL TRUST income £185k

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.